Hello folks, and welcome on back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m thinking we’ll be heading down to the racetrack, and seeing how the training is fairing for Japan’s most accomplished young horse girls. Yep, it’s time for more of the gleefully preposterous Umamusume, wherein young horse girl athletes race to the brink of self-destruction for that golden prize, only to subsequently put on goddamn idol performances. If we are headed for the convergence point of all fandom fascinations, then Umamusume is clearly a key step along the way; combining gacha compulsions with mecha musume-adjacent database dynamics and idol music, the production seems like an absolute fever dream of the modern anime economy, the latest bizarre innovation in media mix commercialism.
It’s also a pretty good show! While I certainly have misgivings about what Umamusume represents, this season has so far offered a reasonably compelling personal drama, digging into the painful anxieties of an athletic career derailed by personal injury. The show has refused to sensationalize its heroine Teio’s troubles, and as a result has been able to effectively sell the painfully mixed feelings of cheering from the sidelines, watching your rivals achieve the dreams your body refuses to grant you. It’s been a rough ride for Teio, so let’s lend her our support as we return to Umamusume!
Episode 3
We open on a view of Teio’s unmarked December calendar, a shot that emphasizes how all her diligent planning has come to nothing. After carefully plotting out the stages of her convalescence, she still ended up failing to recover in time for the tournament; now her future is an empty canvas, her lack of training schedule markers an icon of her failure
We then cut immediately to her crossing out the “Triple Crown” part of her goal, another nasty gut punch
And then she’s out in the field before the sun even rises, her breath misting in the cold air as she trains to make up for all the time she’s lost
Nice sound design here, really impactful tones for the clop of her “hooves”
I am begrudgingly coming to appreciate the absurd diversity of their various racing “uniforms.” It certainly makes for a colorful display as they charge down the track; actual runners dress for speed, but in a universe where aerodynamics are apparently not real, this is a very exuberant alternative
Also still very funny to me that this OP has to scramble from start to finish to somehow fit in every single relevant horse girl
We cut back to our leads hanging out at a New Year’s festival
“This year’s gonna be my year!” The seams holding this world together are very thin; practically any direct reference to time’s passage raises the question of how these girls are constantly re-debuting as racers, essentially trapped in a perpetual Liminal High School that also encompasses their professional careers
Though I suppose that’s nothing unusual for gacha adaptations. One of the many reasons I have no interest in gacha games is that their worldbuilding tends to be convoluted yet unconvincing, to the extent where I can’t really see their characters as human beings responding to human circumstances. The foundation is just too shaky to secure my emotional investment
Teio treats herself to a Misato Drink Chug, one of Evangelion’s smaller additions to the cultural canon
Apparently McQueen came in second place during her big fall race, thus maintaining some parity with her rival Teio
She hoists their trainer overhead for mentioning it. I quite like the gags emphasizing that these horse girls are actually as strong as horses
Teio is apparently back as strong as she ever was, a recovery so quick it only makes me worry about what crisis will befall her next
Apparently Teio and McQueen have been selected for the “URA Awards.” Some fun horse-ear character acting as they snipe each other on stage
Odd beat of the assembled press appearing stunned that these two award-winning athletes have ambitious future goals. Still plenty of disconnects in this show’s worldbuilding; the press here is being framed like awed idol fans, not journalists grilling professional athletes
Twin Turbo and Nice Nature’s team Canopus watch the award ceremony from their own locker room. The production is doing a fine job of honing in on these particular characters as Spica’s rival team
“Time to declare war on Spica!” Twin Turbo’s look does seem to match her personality!
“Trainer! They shot a letter arrow at us!” This is some excellent nonsense
Teio declares she wants to enter the Spring Tennoushou, meaning she’ll be competing directly with McQueen. McQueen’s eyes sparkle as she hears this declaration of rivalmantic intent
Nice framing here, as she says her undefeated aspirations won’t mean much if she doesn’t compete with strong opponents. Both a declaration that she’s just as committed to the tough challenges as she used to be, and also an inherent affirmation of McQueen’s own strength
Sorta interesting how the dramatic needs of an anime adaptation push against the structure of a gacha game; by focusing on Teio as its protagonist, this adaptation necessarily creates a sort of “Teio world” interpretation of the game’s material, one prioritized timeline among the dozens or hundreds one can create via picking whatever game character one chooses to follow. Again, this story is designed to exist in a sort of timeless, replay-ready stasis, which naturally causes friction when harnessed to a traditional narrative and its demand for clear, transformative personal arcs
Extremely funny animation for Twin Turbo just fucking dying during her previous faceoff with McQueen, having burned out all her energy in the first lap
“I’ll analyze every aspect of her racing, and find a way to beat her.” The glasses-pusher archetype feels somewhat out of place in a sport where you’re all competing individually. Though I suppose since you’re racing alongside your competition, issues like controlling the inner line or drafting behind your opponent do facilitate genuine competitive interactions
Some lovely colors for this sunset as Teio and McQueen walk home from practice
Apparently Teio was a top prospect from the moment she entered their school. It makes sense that she’d end up gravitating to McQueen, who’s also somewhat isolated by her apparent family legacy
Teio’s early impression of McQueen is that she was trying too hard to impress her own idol Rudolf. A natural reaction to McQueen’s ostentatiously refined mannerisms
The two pushed each other to higher heights right from the start. Could be a nasty source of drama in that, with McQueen potentially blaming herself for driving Teio to overwork and injury
We jump from “the cherry blossoms will bloom soon” to the pouring rain of McQueen’s next race, immediately undercutting that hope of renewal
Her competitors are entirely lacking in elaborate costumes or hairdos, clearly marking them as doomed from the start
Oh my god, the team’s horse ear-accommodating rain jackets. Also, why does Special Week have a piece of cake on her head? I assume that’s some kind of reference to the first season
Another fun horse gag as Teio effortlessly hops over the barricade dividing them from the course
McQueen begins the race in a confident third place position
“They’ve all got her marked.” We are running into one of the issues I initially worried about – it’s just hard to present parsable, grounded conflicts within the dramatic confines of a footrace. There’s no clear internal challenge to overcome, we just have to hope McQueen runs the fastest. It’s an awkward weakness for a sports show, a genre that tends to naturally excel at mechanical conflicts
Ooh, nice cut as McQueen makes her break. This is basically the only solution: make up for in visual spectacle what you lack in tactical drama
And Done
Thus McQueen wins her first race of the new year, setting the bar and extending a challenge towards her recovering rival. This was definitely a more standard sports drama episode than the preceding episode’s distinctive approach to professional disappointment, but there was still fun to be found in the incidental eccentricities of life in horse girl world, and our two leads are proving a solidly balanced pair of rivals who understandably bring out the best in each other. The challenge of making races visually and dramatically interesting is still a thorn in its side, but Umamusume remains perfectly watchable on the whole, offering a fine articulation of a wildly unserious premise.
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